HVAC-Talk site will be slow for the next few days. It's normal site/server maintenance. Thx -Dad

Welcome to HVAC-Talk.com, a non-DIY site and the ultimate Source for HVAC Information & Knowledge Sharing for the industry professional! Here you can join over 150,000 HVAC Professionals & enthusiasts from around the world discussing all things related to HVAC/R. You are currently viewing as a NON-REGISTERED guest which gives you limited access to view discussions

To gain full access to our forums you must register; for a free account. As a registered Guest you will be able to:

Participate in over 40 different forums and search/browse from nearly 3 million posts.

At least you provided a number..
Which, if you really believe in that number, means that you should be upset by the additional amount of taxes taken from us working folk & would like to see the tax rate become 'FAIR' at everyone paying their 10%.
No need for deductions......just 10% of everything you make.

Richard

I usually go the long form and get my taxes below 10%. But I have to spend money in order to do that. Sometimes it seems like it would be cheaper to just pay the tax though

But again, you won't specify what is enough, of even yoursalary, going to our government & to those needed people whom you are so concerned about.

Maybe this is where we disagree, Printer...
You believe that MOST people who are needy, are that way "through no fault of their own" & are just looking for help to get on their feet & back to work again, & who WOULD actually work, if the opportunity presented itself, to them.............

I, however, believe that the vast majority ( not all, of course ) of the needy are that way due to their own failings, & MOST wouldn't keep a job, if they got it.

But either way, WHY won't you answer the question.
How Much of YOUR salary do you think that you would STILL be OK with???
What the maximum the gov can take before you would scream, ENOUGH ?????????????

I am WAY PAST the point - I've been screaming for years.

Richard

For me to answer that I would have to figure out my financial situation, what comes in and what goes out and to where. Like you said, you want all levels of government included, federal, provincial, city, taxes built into the prices of goods like gas and the like. I could just pull a number out of my behind but it would be a bs number without knowing where it came from.

I do not think most living on the rest of society are willing and capable of doing full time work. I had to bring up those that would as our unemployed have increased in number in the last two years and most of those would work if they could.

Then you get the ones that have 'issues' that limit their employment opportunities. Being that I work in a depressed area where lot of these freeloaders live I get to see what these people are like. My much more liberal than I sister (she thinks I am fairly right wing) puts in time at a food bank and does outreach programs to help these people function in society. Many are just living one step away from disaster, what will happen when you throw them one step further down?

I know, more cops and jails as people in stressful situations tend to do stupid things. If you are luck they will just beat the kids but many will cause problems that spill over into our lives.

I am not saying that perfectly healthy people should be supported by us but if you are going to take away their means of surviving there better be an alternative that they can take even if not by their choice. If all of a sudden people do not have a way to pay their rent or feed themselves (and think of the poor landlords that now have a piece of real-estate that is not generating any income, store owners that are not selling any more groceries) you will see people look at those that have and justify a sin or two.

More than likely they would just riot as they are in Europe right now. Talk about fun times.

Why is it that everyone I see in the welfare housing area ( of which I work sometimes ) is ALWAYS FAT?????
My neighbors, living down the road, are poor ( living in an RV for the past 3 years ), are NOT on welfare, & are slim.

See people, POOR does not have to translate to SORRY....

Richard

We have a lot of FAT people that get dialysis at our hospital. Most are Native ( North American Indian). One of the reasons they get diabetes is due to the food they eat. It is high in fats and sugars. So why do they buy these poor nutritional foods? Because they are CHEAP.

Obesity in the United States is a socioeconomic issue. It is related to limited social and economic resources and may be linked to disparities in access to healthy foods. Added sugars and added fats are far more affordable than are the recommended "healthful" diets based on lean meats, whole grains, and fresh vegetables and fruit. There is an inverse relationship between energy density of foods (kJ/g) and energy cost ($/MJ), such that energy-dense grains, fats, and sweets represent the lowest-cost dietary options to the consumer.

Printer.........just when I starting to give you credit for having some sense when it came to the benefit of individual ingeniuity & initiative.

I've been thinking about defining what I see as the difference between folks that think as you do and folk that think like I do..BTW, both are required in this world so it's not a right/wrong issue.

If the individuals are doing well that are within a certain society, doesn't the society do well?

I think you work in a hospital. Doesn't the hospital do better because you work there?

Individual home ownership develops certain benefits to the local communities. For one it makes that local community more stable since the owners have made an expensive long term commitment. Second, the local community benefits in that the area is typically kept better, more pride in home ownership, then rental areas of the same local community. Third, the tax base becomes more stable allowing the local government to predict more accurately thier budgets in order to keep a better community for all. Third, the local community benefits greatly in that the service sector, such as ours, benefits in the service and upkeep of those proud homeowners. Fourth, the nation does better since this is a national issue and equally applied across all 50 states. The economy does better because in place of allowing Federal Employees to spend your hard earned tax dollars, you as a home owner, get to keep more of you hard earned money to invest, and it is an investment, into your home and, thereby, your neighborhood.

Now getting into the financial benefits of what actually takes place in the background of a well placed mortgage is even more spectacular for the community and country. For one, a homeowner, when placing a loan, has just solidified your retirement over the long term with a stable investment.

The money loaned for the purchase of the home typically comes from a local community banking institution. And that banking institution loaned out the money because you and/or your employer invested their hard earned money to that bank for a reasonable interest return.

And where does that bank get that reasonable interest return? It comes from homeowners who have invested in purchasing a home for themselve and their families.

And do you know that typically homeowners tend to be better and more dependable workers who work for the company that invests their earingings into the bank that loans the money out so employees can invest in their community in the form of a home so the employess has more of a tendency to stay put and become a long term dependable employee as he/she works to pay off the mortgage thereby keeping your retirement safe and secure over you work life span?

There are more reasons but I'll leave it at this for now.

I agree, and said the same in previous posts. Kind of why your government did the Freddie and Fannie thing, subsidize people for the good of the community. Now was that a good thing? Of coarse it was. Was it taking money out of one pocket and putting it into another's? Some think so.

So it is OK to take the hard earned dollars out of one person's pocket after working 40 hours a week and putting into another's (who also works 40 hrs a week, as long as they own a house).

That somehow does not sound right to me but then again here in Canada we can not deduct our mortgage payments from our taxes. The person that owns a house and has a mortgage and makes $40k a year pays the same amount of tax as a person that makes $40k a year and rents a place to live. Somehow it works for us without the government transferring the money from one pocket to another.

Of the 12.4 million households in Canada, more than 8.5 million, over two-thirds (68.4%) owned their home, the highest rate since 1971. At the same time, the proportion of Canadian households that rented their home slipped from 33.8% in 2001 to 31.2% in 2006. About 3.9 million households rented their home in 2006.

I am happy at the end of a year if my ACTUAL tax rate is fifteen percent or less. The real numbers are all over the place, and I have to do a bunch of things to get to the fifteen. I have three mortgages, a business, expenses out the wazoo. I pay sales tax on a crapload of goods every year in both my business and my personal life. My total real estate tax bill is just under fourteen thousand a year. That is real estate taxes ONLY. In the city around here(philly) there is gross receipts tax, net profits tax, and sales tax. There is wage tax, there are rediculous parking fees( close to thrity per day for a service van), and so many more "taxes". Locally there is a wage tax, an "occupation" tax and additional sales taxes. Who the hell actually knows what the total is these days, but I can tell you its nuts.

If we had a flat rate tax system, say ten percent of EVERY personal wage, and say five percent of all business to business sales, I would bet we would have more damn money than we knew what to do with. It wouldnt be that hard to figure out the number right? Take all gross income nationwide, and figure out what rate we need to tax at to pay all of our bills. Problem is that too many uuber rich pay nothing at all, or minimal. Also, if there are people who are unemployed, thats fine, make them clean highways or sidewalks to get the check, sitting at home helps no one. Think how clean out cities would be if all unemloyed picked up a bag of trash per week!!! hell, they can even have the aluminum cans and earn extra cash scrapping them if they want.

Income tax is not the only place the Government gets money. It's fairly easy to take the debt from the wars in Iran and Afghanistan and retire it with a fee on phones. It's just as easy to take the debt off the books and retire it with fee's from imports.

Medicare and Medicaid can be funded by hunting and fishing license fees.

Heck , I could go on and on. And if I can think of it , I'm sure others already have.

For me to answer that I would have to figure out my financial situation,

Printer, come on, quit being so liberal, now you want us to believe that you don't even know where your money goes, or how much you need to live on... & since you are the one making the money don't you think that YOU deserve a little EXTRA.
what comes in and what goes out and to where. Like you said, you want all levels of government included, federal, provincial, city, taxes built into the prices of goods like gas and the like. I could just pull a number out of my behind but it would be a bs number without knowing where it came from.

Again, quite BS, if you ask me.... why don't you know where your money comes from already???
Why would'nt you already KNOW how much money that you could live without, so that the gov can TAKE it & GIVE IT to someone else...maybe someone that WON'T do for themselves?????????????

I do not think most living on the rest of society are willing and capable of doing full time work.

Then you are either lying or dumb or at least VERY NAIVE....as the VAST MAJORITY COULD work, that I have seen...

I had to bring up those that would as our unemployed have increased in number in the last two years and most of those would work if they could.

Are you sure about this????, of course it really doesn't matter as you WILL support them in either case.

Then you get the ones that have 'issues' that limit their employment opportunities. Being that I work in a depressed area where lot of these freeloaders live I get to see what these people are like. My much more liberal than I sister (she thinks I am fairly right wing) puts in time at a food bank and does outreach programs to help these people function in society. Many are just living one step away from disaster, what will happen when you throw them one step further down?

I won't throw nobody anywhere. Their parents should be the ones to take care ofthem if they need to be taken care of....
I didn't ask them to be in this world...only their parents did....

I know, more cops and jails as people in stressful situations tend to do stupid things. If you are luck they will just beat the kids but many will cause problems that spill over into our lives.

Don't know what this means so I can't respond..

I am not saying that perfectly healthy people should be supported by us but if you are going to take away their means of surviving there better be an alternative that they can take even if not by their choice. If all of a sudden people do not have a way to pay their rent or feed themselves (and think of the poor landlords that now have a piece of real-estate that is not generating any income, store owners that are not selling any more groceries) you will see people look at those that have and justify a sin or two.

Now see the liberal slant.....you couldn't just say "healthy people", but you had to say "PERFECTLY healthy people"....just so you can have more litigation to determine just what is meant by "perfectly".

Actuall, I am NOT perfectly healthy, so does that mean that I can go on welfare, or do you just want to send me a check every month, since you have so much & DO NOT CARE HOW MUCH OF YOUR MONEY GOES TO THE GOV OR TO HELP THE 'DOWNTRODDEN'.

Of course you wouldn't be helping the downtrodden if you didn't have everyone else FORCED to join your "Band of Robin Hoods"....

More than likely they would just riot as they are in Europe right now. Talk about fun times.

Printer, I believe in helping those that truely CAN't do anything for them selves, though I still say that their parents are the one who should PRIMARILY be responsible for the individuals that they brought into this world.

However, I also believe that 90+% of all who we are helping ARE CAPABLE of doing something for them selves.

Once they do ALL THEY CAN FOR THEMSELVES, then they can come to me for any additional help.....

Now why would you want to saddle a man and a woman with a lifetime of responsibility for a few minutes of pleasure?

Oh I see you would prefer to saddle all of us taxpayers with the responsibility for your few "seconds" of pleasure huh ace. Not fair everyone should pay for their own actions and not others. Thank you very much

"I could have ended the war in a month. I could have made North Vietnam look like a mud puddle."
"I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution."Barry Goldwater

Printer, come on, quit being so liberal, now you want us to believe that you don't even know where your money goes, or how much you need to live on... & since you are the one making the money don't you think that YOU deserve a little EXTRA.

I built an addition on to my house a few years back. Girlfriend at the time asked how much it cost. I said I did not know. When I needed a 2x4, shingles, whatever, I just went out and handed over the cash. Never added it up because I was going to finish the project anyway no matter what it cost. Did the work myself so it cost half of what it would if I had it done.

I need food, I go out and buy it. I wanted to buy a guitar, I shopped around and found one I like and got $100 off the list price. I do not squander my money but I do live a comfortable life. I take care where my money goes but I don't count it.

Mind you I meant the bs number would be me guessing on a tax number without knowing how much tax is taken from me now.

Then you are either lying or dumb or at least VERY NAIVE....as the VAST MAJORITY COULD work, that I have seen...

Please reread the sentence. I said

I do not think most living on the rest of society
are willing
and capable of doing full time work.

There are those that are not willing and also those that are not able.

Are you sure about this????, of course it really doesn't matter as you WILL support them in either case.

I am sure your unemployment rate has increased and people have found themselves out of work since two years ago. What are you sure about?

I won't throw nobody anywhere. Their parents should be the ones to take care ofthem if they need to be taken care of....
I didn't ask them to be in this world...only their parents did....

So their parents should not have procreated. Oh well, they are a part of society now. Guess you are pro-life also. Have you figured out how to get blood out of a stone yet?

Don't know what this means so I can't respond..

By your posts I would think this is the most accurate statement you have made so far. I grew up and know those situations and some of the causes of our society's ills. It is much easier for me to forgive you attitude knowing it comes out of ignorance.

So it is OK to take the hard earned dollars out of one person's pocket after working 40 hours a week and putting into another's (who also works 40 hrs a week, as long as they own a house).

That somehow does not sound right to me but then again here in Canada we can not deduct our mortgage payments from our taxes. The person that owns a house and has a mortgage and makes $40k a year pays the same amount of tax as a person that makes $40k a year and rents a place to live. Somehow it works for us without the government transferring the money from one pocket to another.

Having you see a wider picture of what is out there is very difficult. It seems your point of view is limited by your belief structure..yes, I know...anyone can say that about anyone else..and to some degree it's always going to be true..but:

Your view seems to be that if we are each given a bowl of soup my bowl and your bowl should be equal and the fact is that I worked my butt off and you sat on your lazy butt most of the time OR you just spent months on studying extra hours to learn a specialized system and I just floated along does not seem to apply to your point of view.

That point of veiw, where everything should be shared equally, kills individual motivation and individual responsibility not to mention individual ingenuity

All free nations are base in success on those qualities. All non free nations are based on the lack of those qualities.

And you continue to make connections that if one is doing well it's always at the expense of another.

Not true.

But I have no way to get you to see that or begin to understand that side of life. So I'll just let it rest.

"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers it can bribe the public with the public's own money.
- Alexis﻿ de Toqueville, 1835

Having you see a wider picture of what is out there is very difficult. It seems your point of view is limited by your belief structure..yes, I know...anyone can say that about anyone else..and to some degree it's always going to be true..but:

Your view seems to be that if we are each given a bowl of soup my bowl and your bowl should be equal and the fact is that I worked my butt off and you sat on your lazy butt most of the time OR you just spent months on studying extra hours to learn a specialized system and I just floated along does not seem to apply to your point of view.

That point of veiw, where everything should be shared equally, kills individual motivation and individual responsibility not to mention individual ingenuity

All free nations are base in success on those qualities. All non free nations are based on the lack of those qualities.

And you continue to make connections that if one is doing well it's always at the expense of another.

Not true.

But I have no way to get you to see that or begin to understand that side of life. So I'll just let it rest.

Actually I have no problem with one person bettering themselves for personal gain. I did the same myself going back to school and now being able to get higher paying jobs than if I did not.

But you are the one that thinks that if we both have the same financial reward from our occupation that I am to give you some soup from my bowl because you want to own a house and I want to rent, all other things being equal. As I had shown this subsidy to you from me (If I lived in the US) via the government does not actually increase home ownership. Your mortgage subsidy system resulting in almost equal home ownership rates as in Canada, a difference of 1%. (And no picking my neighbor's pocket to pay off my house)

So yes I believe that we should be equal. If we make the same amount of dollars that we both should pay the same amount of tax.